


Of Umbrellas and the Thirst for Revenge

by valinorbound



Category: Daredevil (TV), Iron Fist (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), Luke Cage (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, British author struggles to write American characters: Exhibit A, Dark Past, Gen, Heavy Angst, Suicidal Thoughts, Umbrella Academy AU, author has no plan for where this is going but is going to try their best regardless
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 16:45:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17922557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valinorbound/pseuds/valinorbound
Summary: On the twelfth hour of the first day of October, nineteen eighty-nine, forty-three women around the world gave birth.This was unusual only in the fact that none of these women had been pregnant when the day first began.Sir Reginald Hargreeves, eccentric billionaire and adventurer, resolved to locate and adopt as many of the children as possible.He got four of them.[OR] A shameless Umbrella Academy AU.





	Of Umbrellas and the Thirst for Revenge

**Author's Note:**

> No beta - we die by our own sword.

She’s standing on the bridge; so, so high up.  
  


_It’s not your fault. None of it ever was. You were used - nothing was your choice - hey, listen to me…  
_ 

Wind in her hair - it roars, pushing her forwards and then back, a cruel metaphor for the thoughts racing in her head.  
  


_You can’t keep drowning your past with your addiction. You have to face it at some point or another, or it’s going to consume you - either that, or the alcohol will._  
  


She has so much to live for, but then again, she doesn’t.  
  


_You’re the reason everything went to shit, Jess. The only reason. Oh, you were a kid? Yeah, so we all were._  
  


She never really has.  
  


_Come here, let me look at you. Come on._  
_Appaling sense of fashion, but that can be remedied._  


_And underneath it all, the power. Just like me._

 

The water is a million miles below.  
  


Calm and glistening in the steady sunrise, obscuring the swirling currents beneath the surface.  
 

It screams at her.  
  


She screams back.

 

* * *

 

 

“Mr Rand? You have a visitor.”  
  


“Cool. Great. Thanks. Would you hold on _just_ one-”  
  


“It’s Ms Meachum.”  
  


Mr Rand dropped the two-foot katana, fumbling to roll up the exercise mat he stood on, alert for the first time that morning.  
 

“Tell her I’ll be there in two seconds,” he said, sliding the katana back into its case. “I wasn’t expecting-”  
  


“Well, I wasn’t expecting the sword.”  
  


He spins on his heel to face the door. There she stands with her pencil skirt and heels, immaculate as usual, holding that too-shiny leather briefcase.  
She smiles.  
  


“Joy,” he breathes. “Uh, hey, I- I thought we were meeting tomorrow? Or was it-”  
  


“No, it was tomorrow,” Joy replies. He tries not to be intimidated.  
  


“Right, right.” He tries a smile but he knows he’s lying to both of them, so he gives up with that and just moves to shake her hand.  
 

She ignores it. He should have expected that.  
  


“So, how’ve you been doing…?”  
  


“The wait has been… agonising, to say the least.” There’s an unmistakable bitterness to her words.  
  


“Look, I'm sorry. We had that issue with the plant to clear up, as well as-”  
  


“We both know you hoped I'd change my mind if you put it off long enough.” Joy gives a humourless laugh and shakes her head. “Not gonna happen.”  
  


“I… yeah. Ok. I don’t want you to leave, you know that - neither does Ward,” he admits.

  
“Honestly?” she says with a raised eyebrow, “ _Fuck_ Ward.”  
  


He sighs, looks at his feet, remembers everything that’s come to light in the months before.  
  


“Fair enough, I guess. Anyway…?”  
  


Mr Rand gestures to a chair on one side of his desk and takes a seat on the other. He glances to his left out of the floor-to-ceiling office window, using the brief moment to take in the peace the morning sun behind a fifty-story-high cloud.  
If he squints, he can almost see that eagle.  
  


“Just, think about it? One more week, Joy, please.”  
  


“I’ve had two months. Just… I want this over.”  
  


“Don’t we all,” he mutters.  
  


He reaches under his desk to the safe. Nine-eight-nine-zero and he’s placing the documents in front of Joy, who eyes them with a look he’s finding harder to trust by the second.  
  


“You sure you want to do this?” he asks. One last try can’t hurt. “The company is so much better off with you here, like I said, we can come to an agreement-”  
  


“This right here?” she says, tapping the documents with manicured nails, “Is the only agreement I’ll be needing for a long time.”  
  


There are so many things he wants - no, needs - to say to her. But he’s opening the folder and finding a pen, and there’s nothing he can do to stop his hands moving, to stop her leaving.  
  


“So, Danny,” she says. “We’d better get started.”

 

* * *

 

The door to the bar creaks on rusty, disused hinges as he pushes it open. The movement dislodges a sheet of dust that falls from the ceiling, swirling lazily in the afternoon sun drifting through the windows.    
He’s hit with the smell of alcohol and must. The room feels smaller than it used to, but at the same time, too big. Maybe compared to a prison cell, that’s normal; the problem is, he doesn’t know what’s normal anymore.  
  


_Three years._  
  


He walks behind the bar to the glass cabinet, treading carefully - he’s not sure why, but it’s as if he’s trying to avoid unsettling the ghosts.

There are so many of them.

So many people have walked through that door, each with their stories to either spill or bury at the bottom of a shot glass. He’s no different.  
  


Luke has no words to describe how it feels. He’d been waiting for this day for what felt like an eternity, but now it was here he had no idea what it meant.  
He was out, now, right? He could do what he liked. There were no limits, no more prison meatloaf. He could live is life without being watched; he just didn’t know where to start.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s nighttime in New York City, and that usually means one thing for some unfortunate soul.  
  


The shadow is moving.  
  
It flies down the side street between apartments, passing overflowing trash cans and twitching net curtains. Neon lights shine up from the water on cement and down from the takeout shops, filling the alleyway with a humming glow that is broken only by the rush of a car from the adjoining road.  
Noises are everywhere. Pulsing music with the distant shouts, cars and an overhead train.  
  


Footsteps ahead, a rough voice slurred with drink. The shadow crouches, moves towards the voice with its head to the side, listening and waiting and listening and waiting and hearing and _running-_

It’s running before the man in front can blink, throwing a fist of steel forward that sends him thundering down; it gets a few hits in before the man stands again and attempts a punch, but the shadow’s ready. It spins upwards from feet made of springs, kicking in the man’s direction as he-

A stone-hard force as it’s caught from the air. Blood gushes to its head as the sky spins upside down, tumbling over and over until it can _focus, c’mon, focus,_ and send an unseen elbow to the assailant's jaw.

Down again. He won’t get back up. This time, the job had been easy.  
  


It stands over the man, who lies with gravel in his cheek and blood in his mouth, shielding his eyes from the figure above him as if it was light and not darkness.

It clasps the man’s blood-soaked collar in a steady hand.  
  


“Tell me where I can find Ranskahov,” it growls, almost a whisper.  
  


“I don’t- I don’t know where-”  
  


Fist meets teeth again. The man spits, gasping and still struggling to get free.  
  


“Don’t lie to me.”  
  


“You don’t… understand,” he says, dropping his voice with a nervous glance to the side.  
 

“I understand perfectly fine. You’re not telling me, and I’m ready to hit you again.”  
  


“We tell? He kills. Us.” The man’s breathing speeds up. “All of us, he’s-”  
  


“Then you’d better run when I’m done with you. Now, where’s-”  
  


“T-There’s nothing you can… can do to me, that’s worse than what-”  
  


“I’m not giving you a choice-”  
  


The movement is almost too fast for the shadow to notice. The man’s free arm goes to his pocket, pulling something out and up and towards his face-

He slips the blade into his own neck and the blood bursts out. There’s a wet, strangled cry that rips from the man’s bubbling throat, and the shadow drops his body and stumbles backwards.

It has to get out of here. It watches for half a second as the man’s life leaks out, his breath faltering but the blood still flowing. _That wasn’t how it was meant to go, goddamnit, he should have seen the blade, getting sloppy, getting weak-_

 

Go. Run.

 

It runs.

 

A cat to the left of the shadow startles and screeches, but it doesn’t stop for a second; the gust of black drifts over a gate with a step so gentle it was heard by not even the cat. 

The cat in question looks back at the appetising half-a-burger at its feet. The shadow is forgotten.

 

* * *

 

 

On the twelfth hour of the first day of October, nineteen eighty-nine, forty-three women around the world gave birth.  
This was unusual only in the fact that none of these women had been pregnant when the day first began.

Sir Reginald Hargreeves, eccentric billionaire and adventurer, resolved to locate and adopt as many of the children as possible.

 

He got four of them.

  


 


End file.
